


The Return

by theandrogynousdragon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Regulus Black, Biromantic Regulus Black, Bisexual Remus Lupin, Claustrophobia, Does It Count As Major Character Death If The Dead Guy Comes Back?, Druidic Marriage Rituals, F/M, Gay Sirius Black, Good Regulus Black, Group Marriage, He Comes Back To Life At Any Rate, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Inferi, M/M, Multi, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, POC Harry Potter, POC Hermione Granger, POC James Potter, Paganism, Panic Attacks, Past Sexual Assault of a Minor, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Regulus Black Feels, Regulus Black Lives, Regulus Black-centric, Secret Marriage, The Afterlife Is Not All Fun And Games, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Work Up For Adoption, asking for a friend, hydrophobia, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22080919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theandrogynousdragon/pseuds/theandrogynousdragon
Summary: Regulus Black went to that cave intending to die. He did not intend to come back.
Relationships: Regulus Black & Sirius Black, Regulus Black/Original Female Character(s), Regulus Black/Original Male Character(s), Regulus Black/Original Male Character(s)/Original Female Character(s), Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a severely canon divergent fic. You have been warned.

We are not following some of the movie adaptations as far as who is playing what character, because several of those actors were too old to be playing those characters. That said, here is my face cast for the HP group: (if a name is not listed, assume the movie actor is fine) 

Harry Potter: young Dev Patel 

Hermione Granger: Letitia Wright

Ginny Weasley: young Natalya Rudakova

Molly Weasley: Katherine Parkinson 

Arthur Weasley: Tom Goodman-Hill 

Remus Lupin: Aaron Taylor Johnson

James Potter: Sendhil Ramamurthy 

Lily Potter: Isla Fisher 

Sirius Black: Tom Payne 

Regulus Black: Colin Morgan 

Narcissa Black: Gaia Mondadori 

Lucius Malfoy: Lee Pace 

Bellatrix Lestrange: Kiera Knightley

Walburga Black: MyAnna Buring

Orion Black: John Lynch 

Rashmi Patil (OC): Anya Chalotra 

Johnathan Prewett (OC): Stefano Masciolini 

* * *

* * *

Regulus Black went to that cave intending (hoping, maybe) that he would not leave it alive (he'd left a note for them, so they wouldn't be too worried). And he thought it'd worked; he'd drowned, after all. Pulled under by Inferi. Except. Except he woke up. In a garden that seemed eerily familiar, standing in front of a woman with a crown of flames and a rust-haired man with a crown of clouds. The woman (a goddess whose name and dominion had been lost to time and newer (kinder, less vicious, less _hungry_ ) faiths, perhaps?) smiled at him and told him to go back. The cloud-crowned man (god?) said nothing, but his hazel eyes were kind and a little bit sad.

"The stars cannot have you yet, Regulus Black. I will not _let_ them. Now go. You have been here too long already."

The man brushed his fingers down Regulus' arm, and whispered, “be safe.” And Regulus Black woke up, choking on lake water and drowning in reverse. He collapsed on the shore, bruised and bloodied and scrambling away from the water's edge, terrified that the Inferi were going to follow him. He had no wand and no shoes, and had absolutely no idea that what had been a few minutes to him had been sixteen years, eight months, and twelve days to everyone else.

Nymphadora Tonks had a craving for jam sandwiches at five til two in the morning—not entirely unusual for her, given the bouts of insomnia that had plagued her since she was a child. What was unusual was the sopping wet barefoot kid apparating into the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place at two-oh-four. Even more unusual was for the kid to look up at her with unfocused blue-grey eyes and give her an exhausted smile, like he knew her and was happy to see her.

“Hullo, Andy,” the boy rasped softly, the same light Irish lilt to his voice that Sirius and her mother shared. “ 'D you dye your hair? Looks nice. Lilacs.”

Tonks paused her sandwich-making and sat down next to the kid, leaning against the cupboards like he was. He blinked at her, trying to be attentive while still looking like he'd crawled half-dead out of a river—one with some particularly sharp rocks, by the look of those scrapes. Tonks pulled out her wand and tried to cast a few basic drying and warming charms. They didn't work, to her dismay—she was rubbish at most household spells, but the poor kid didn't deserve to get hypothermia because of it. She knew Moody would be giving her hell for this if he could see it—the kid was an unknown, and had apparated into a house protected by a Fidelius Charm—but she couldn't find it in herself to be too suspicious. He'd called her by her mum's name, for one, and looked a bit like Sirius, for another. She decided to ask him a few questions to try to distract him from his current state.

“Right then,” she said kindly. “Care to tell your name, kid? And why you seem to think I'm my own mum?” Wrong question, apparently, because the kid looked horrified and a little like he might be sick. Tonks hoped he wasn't going to be. Kreacher would be pissed.

“Wha- I- H-how long have I been dead?” the kid whispered, seeming to be talking to himself more than her. Shit. She stood up, and the kid scrambled to follow, wincing when he put weight on his right leg.

“Okay, I'm going to get Sirius now. I don't know how to deal with resurrected people.”

“Siri's here?” He looked so damn hopeful. Poor kid. Tonks wondered at the nickname.

“Yeah. 'S his house, after all. Not that he likes it much. Y'know, I might as well wake everyone up while I'm at it. Less repeating yourself to do later.” The boy looked confused as he limped after her into the front hall.

“What're you doing?”

Tonks grinned at him, “waking everyone up, o'course.” She tipped over the ugly troll's foot umbrella holder, which naturally set a certain portrait screaming. She felt bad for it when the kid flinched and paled.

“TONKS!” someone—it sounded like Remus—shouted wearily.

“Get down here!” she called back. “We've got a visitor!” She turned back to the as-yet-unnamed kid. “Tonks is me, by the way.”

“Regulus Black,” the lad whispered, glancing to the stairs as footsteps were heard and chattering started up.

“C'mon then, Regulus. Let's go to the kitchen to wait for everyone. It's big enough, and people can get coffee if they need it.”

They were only halfway there (they were going slow to accommodate whatever was causing Regulus to limp. Tonks made a mental note to get that looked at as soon as possible.) when Sirius got to the ground floor, Remus not far behind him. Sirius paled three shades and Remus looked absolutely gobsmacked. Regulus looked a bit confused, which was quickly being replaced by a rising horror. The rest of the Order just looked confused and wary in equal measure. When Sirius spoke, his voice was hoarse.

“Reggie? That you?”

“Hey, Siri. 'S been awhile, yeah?”

Sirius' smile went a bit watery. “I thought you were dead.”

Regulus' answering grin was quick and a bit pained. “Sorry to disappoint you, then.” Moody, whose scowl had been deepening in the seconds since he'd clapped eyes on Regulus, suddenly shot off a Stupefy. Regulus stumbled back, his right leg buckling under him. He crumpled, coughing blood from a couple of badly broken ribs and beginning to panic, flashing back to his own death.

“What the _hell_ , Mad-Eye?” snarled Sirius, looking like he was two seconds from punching the senior Auror in what was left of his nose. Just then, a flare of bright purple light erupted to the group's right—towards the entrance hall—and a pair of unfamiliar teenagers tumbled out of it, a pale red-haired boy and a tan girl with sleek black hair. They completely ignored the hostile adults and went straight to Regulus, crouching next to him and whispering to both him and each other in a musical language. The girl whipped out her wand and began muttering what were evidently healing spells of some kind, while the boy focused on trying to get Regulus to calm down. The Order stood about awkwardly, uncertain of what to do while Regulus rode out his panic attack.

Eventually, his breathing evened out and he put his head on the red-haired boy's shoulder, his left hand loosely grasping the girl's dark skirts. A strange noise curled out of Regulus' throat, halfway between a cat's purr and a whine. Harry looked at the adults—Sirius was now yelling at Moody, Remus still looked like he'd been hit in the face with a pan, and everyone else looked varying degrees of tired, confused, and wary—and decided to ask the pertinent question if no one else was going to. “Anyone care to explain what the _hell_ is going on?” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! This took a bit, but it's longer so there's that. I'm not too sure if this is cohesive so let me know if you like it. I put more spaces in between the dialogue this time because I didn't want you guys to have to suffer through a wall of text lol. Just as a warning, there is some heavily implied past rape and CSA in this chapter, and I'll be altering the tags to reflect that.

* * *

* * *

Regulus picked his head up and looked at the boy who bore a significant resemblance to James Potter. “Right, I'm going to assume that you are _not_ James Potter, and that Evans _didn't_ jinx your eyes a different color.” He staggered to his feet, gently brushing off his wife's concern with a muttered “I'm alright love”. Rashmi frowned at him, catching his arm—his breath caught and he reminded himself sternly that there were no Inferi here—and pointing out that his leg had been broken and was undoubtedly still tender, therefore he was decidedly not alright. John ducked in on his other side and Regulus decided to give up. They were just as stubborn as he was, after all.

Everyone trooped into the kitchen and sat around the table, looking expectantly at Reg and John and Rashmi for the answers to their no-doubt numerous questions. Right. This was going to be interesting. Starting simple would be best.“My name is Regulus Black, and these are my wife, Rashmi Patil, and my husband, Johnathan Prewett.” There was a stunned silence, and then the questions started.

“How can you be married to two people at once?”

“Wait— _Prewett_? As in Mum's family?”

“Aren't you a bit young for that?”

“A Black? I though Sirius was the last one?”

“How'd you get in here, boy? This house is warded.”

His brother's voice cut through them all, despite being quieter than half of them and frostily polite. Reg knew that anger well, that brush against the family madness. Sirius was going to kill him. “You _got_ _married_ , Regulus? You're eighteen years old, for fuck's sake! What in Merlin's name were you _thinking_?”

“Well,” John drawled, ever the gallows humorist. “There is a war on, if you recall. And plenty of people get married around the same age.”

Sirius turned to John, snarling, “you don't get to talk, you bloody _thief_.”

“Sirius, please,” Regulus muttered. “Shut up before this turns into a damn fistfight. And if you're talking about thievery, I technically seduced them, so.”

Sirius grumbled but relented after Remus Lupin put a hand on his shoulder, still shooting nasty looks at John and Rashmi. Regulus sighed internally. This was going to be a long night. “In answer to your questions, I can be married to two people because it was a pagan marriage, which is still perfectly legal under Wizarding Law, even if it's fallen out of favor. Admittedly, we might be a bit young for it but as John said, there is a war on and we figured it would be better to do it while we still could. John is Molly's cousin, so yes, they are related. Sirius Black is my older brother, and I can bypass the wards because the house recognizes me as belonging to the family magic. That everything?”

James Potter's lookalike bit his lip and said, “Sirius told me about you. You died, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Did it hurt?” The people around the table very carefully pretended not to be interested.

“Drowning isn't exactly quick, or painless. I wouldn't recommend it.” Rashmi took his hand under the table, flashing him a look that said they would be _having_ _words_ about this later.

His stomach hurt a little, at the memory of that awful potion. It occurred to him that he hadn't eaten in... a while. He could happily murder someone for a coffee right now. And a bit of cake—chocolate, preferably dark, though he wouldn't be upset by a toffee pudding either—with a ridiculous amount of icing on it and some raspberries that John would inevitably nick from him. Reg didn't mind really, he barely even liked raspberries, but it was the principle of the thing. And chocolate made everything better. Except meat—wait, no there was that thing Rashmi's brother Harun had shown him that some Muggles did at carnivals, with bacon. He wondered how Harun was doing; if he'd ended up marrying that girl he'd been sweet on. If he was even alive to give his mother those grandchildren she'd been badgering the poor bloke about. And Rashmi's mum made this lovely dessert, come to think of it... he forgot the name, but it was a sort of pretzel thing soaked in a syrup, and he was pretty sure you were supposed to eat them with yogurt but he'd never actually done that. They were terribly sticky though... Took ages to get the stuff off his fingers...

“-lus! Regulus!” He startled a bit, confused as to why and _when_ Sirius had got up from his spot to shout and wave a hand in his face. James Potter's doppelganger looked guilty, most everyone else looked concerned, and Rashmi looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh. Rashmi was a passive Legilimens, so that at least made sense. “You alright? You spaced out on us for a bit there.”

“I'm fine,” he muttered stiffly, quietly embarrassed that he'd worried them by getting distracted because he was _hungry_ , of all things. “Everything just sort of, hit me all at once, y'know?” He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to bleed before he continued. “And I never really was a Death Eater, before you ask. I mean, I got Marked, and all, but it was so we could sabotage it from inside. I didn't even believe in... all that, to be honest.”

Sirius scoffed, “now that I don't believe. You were our parents' model pureblood son, Reg.”

“Yes, Sirius,” Regulus said slowly. “You know what our parents were like. It was easier to keep my head down than try to argue with them.”

The look on Sirius' face was challenging, almost smug in a strange way. “No, I don't. They never really bothered with me, after a while.” Regulus felt like screaming at his brother. He thought about his mother's Cruciatus, his father's rage, and wondered how Sirius could sit there and pretend he didn't know what Regulus was talking about. There were so many ghosts in this house. Looking at his brother, with nearly twenty years separating them now, he wondered if he counted as one of them.

“I sent you a letter, in my sixth year. Did you even read it?”

Sirius had enough grace to look sheepish. “Er, well no. I thought you were just boasting about getting Marked, so I um. I burned it.”

“I'm assuming you know about Catigern Mulciber's... proclivities.” Sirius and Remus both looked horrified—well, Sirius looked horrified. Remus looked like he might be ill. Molly Weasley was pitying and Arthur was stunned. Moody just looked tired, and grimly understanding. The younger teens and Andy's girl were confused, though the girl with wild hair seemed to be on the verge of sussing out his meaning. Rashmi squeezed his hand and John put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in, whispering that he didn't have to tell them this. He picked at his fingers and stared at the wood grain on the table as he stubbornly kept on. Might as well get it all out, right? Didn't want anyone drawing any mad conclusions. “Mulciber's a paedophile, and he ah, prefers the ones with blue eyes.” He could _feel_ them all staring at him, and he _hated_ it. “Someone fucking _say_ _something_ ,” he snarled, a sudden anger zipping down his spine, settling between his ribs. His hands were bleeding, and he tasted blood in his mouth where he'd bit down sharply on his tongue to stop himself from screaming at these people with their gods-damned _compassion_ and their _pity_ because what happened to him _wasn't_ _their_ _fault_ and they didn't deserve to have him shouting at them about it. Sparks curled off his clenched fists and Rashmi tugged him out of his seat, moving him towards the door, John following close behind.

“I think that's enough for tonight, yeah?” she bit out, daring anyone to try to contradict her. Regulus lost a bit of time between the kitchen door and his bedroom. He was almost grateful for it even though it worried him a bit. He didn't used to do that, before, well. Before. Distantly, he realized he was shaking, little blue flames licking up his arms. There was water running somewhere, sounding uncomfortably loud and close. Rashmi was talking to him, but he couldn't understand her— the water was in his ears too. John was at the door, waving his wand in a complex manner that should be familiar but he couldn't place at the moment. Rashmi touched his arm and he recoiled, terrified of burning her.

John came up behind him and rubbed at his shoulders lightly, murmuring softly, “it's alright, Reg. Your magic could never hurt us, darling. You know that, yeah?”

He nodded, dragging in a shaky breath, leaning back into John's chest and tugging Rashmi close. He lost more time, and resurfaced curled up on the floor, bracketed by his spouses as they held him. “Better, hirra?” Rashmi murmured, fiddling with his hair. The flames were gone, mercifully.

Regulus hummed softly, “tired.”

“Alright,” John whispered. “We can talk more about all this in the morning. Hey, think your old bed'll fit all of us?”

Rashmi laughed, “we're wizards, aren't we, malāk?” They stood up together, grabbing hands and shirt hems; a few whispered spells from Rashmi's cedar wand—out of the three of them, she had always been the best at Transfiguration—saw them in sleep clothes, with a larger bed in front of them that they were more than happy to climb into. They tangled together and drifted off, too tired to bother with anymore talking. There was, however, plenty of talking _downstairs_ , where the recently reinstated Order of the Phoenix (plus a few teenagers) still was. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't speak Arabic, so I apologize if I've butchered the language horribly. I used an English-Arabic dictionary, though, so hopefully it's better than Google Translate. The dessert Rashmi's mum makes is called jalebi. It's a popular dessert in several South and West Asian countries, and is usually served with curds or rabri. "Hirra" is phonetic Arabic for "kitten" and "malāk" is phonetic Arabic for "darling" or "sweetheart".

**Author's Note:**

> I am not from anywhere in the Middle East, so if anyone is feel free to let me know if my OC's name is plausible or if the names wouldn't go together. And if anyone wants to help me brit-pick this, they are more than welcome.


End file.
